A Christmas story from Blessac
Every Christmas, my husband gives me something with a Bible verse on it. Last Christmas, I finally gave one back.
He’s the one who keeps putting God’s Word in my hands. It took me twenty-six years to put some in his.
Story by the Blessac team · 5-minute readSkip to the gift ↓
The first one was a Bible cover, the Christmas after we got married. Navy blue, with my name inside.
Then a little cross necklace. Then a coffee mug with Psalm 46:10 on it, the year my mom was sick.
The Christmas before last, it was a handbag. Sunflowers and butterflies across the front, and the words “Be still, and know that I am God.”
I cried a little when I opened it. Mark pretended not to notice.
That’s my husband. Twenty-six Christmases, and every one of them, he has found a way to put God’s Word in my hands.
Then I looked at his side of the bed
A few weeks later, I was making the bed, and I stopped.
My nightstand has two Bibles, a stack of sticky tabs and a prayer notebook I’ve filled three times over.
His nightstand has his reading glasses and yesterday’s coffee mug.
That’s it.
And it wasn’t just the nightstand. The Bible cover, the necklace, the bag, the notebook. Every piece of faith in our house was on my side.
Mark’s faith is real. He prays over every meal. He runs the sound board at church. He mows the widow’s lawn next door without being asked.
But he had nothing of his own to hold it.
I’d been on the receiving end for twenty-six years.
“I don’t need anything, hon. I’ve got you.”
That’s what he says every time I ask what he wants for Christmas.
So I get him a fleece. Or a gift card. Or the drill he already owns, in a newer color.
I wanted to give him what he gives me. Something that says, I see your faith, and it matters.
But what does a man actually use? Not a necklace. Not another mug.
He already writes everything down
Here’s the thing about Mark. He is a list man.
Grocery lists on the back of envelopes. The tire pressure on a sticky note in the truck. The date he changed the furnace filter, in pencil, on the side of the furnace.
He writes everything down.
Everything except his prayers.
That’s when it clicked. He didn’t need a blank diary, and he didn’t need a book of somebody else’s thoughts. He needed a list. A prayer list, with a place for each thing.
He didn’t need a diary.
He needed a prayer list.
The one I picked
I found a prayer journal made for a man. The cover is nearly black, with gold and white letters: THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH AND MY SHIELD, from Psalm 28:7, around a knight kneeling in front of a lion.
Inside, it works the way Mark’s mind works. Every Daily Prayer page has the same ten short boxes, each with a label on top:
- Scripture Verse the verse for today
- Things On My Heart what’s weighing on him before he prays
- Adoration praise God for who He is
- Guide Me where he needs God’s direction
- Confession what he needs to set right
- Teach Me what he wants God to teach him
- Prayer Request tick Myself, Family & Friends, Country or Community
- Lord, I Am Grateful For a few of today’s blessings, with small squares to tick
- Lord’s Answer what came after he prayed
- Application what he’ll do with it today
It even has a Prayer Tracker in the back. He writes down a prayer and the date, then marks it when the answer comes. For a list man, that’s the best part.
The pages have no dates printed on them, so a skipped morning never wastes a page. It’s paperback size, 5.7 × 8.3 inches, and it sits right on top of his Bible, with an elastic band, a pen loop and a ribbon.
Christmas morning
I made him open it first, for once.
He read the cover out loud. “The Lord is my strength and my shield.”
Then he looked at me and said, very quietly, “You got me one of my own.”
That was all. For Mark, that’s a speech.
His side of the bed now
The journal lives on his nightstand now, between the reading glasses and the mug.
Most mornings he takes it to the kitchen table with his coffee. Some mornings it’s ten boxes. Some mornings it’s two. I don’t read it. That’s his.
But one morning in March he slid it across the table, open to the Prayer Tracker, and tapped a line with his finger.
It was a prayer for our daughter’s new job, dated in January. Next to it, in pencil, a check mark.
“Thought you’d want to see that one,” he said.
For twenty-six years he put God’s Word in my hands. Now there’s some in his.
If he’s always the giver
Maybe your husband is the one who remembers the verse, the card, the little gift with meaning. Maybe all the faith in your house lives on your side of the bed, too.
This year, it can be his turn.
